Fic: Shadow In The City (Sam/Dean, NC-17) 4 of 4
Part 3
*~*~*
“Ann, goddammit! Ann where are you! Someone’s parked in my space downstairs. This giant old boat of a car. Call security for me. No, call Sergio!” a very tall and very incensed man who has to be Eric Merrell yells down the dark, early-morning quiet hallway.
Dean was only lightly sleeping because of the itching feeling of his injuries healing up underneath the salve, so he’s the first one that gets up. He pops his head out of the guest room doorway, “Sorry Mr. Merrell, I’ll go move my car, we thought you were coming back this afternoon.”
“Who the hell are you? What the fuck are you doing in my house?” The man yells, gesturing with his leather-gloved hands in an increasingly threatening manner. His pale blue eyes are wide in anger but red-rimmed as if he’s been around a lot of smoke, his white-blond hair looks a bit wild and wind-blown.
“Name’s Dean. Dean Winchester, nice to meet ya. We’ve been staying here with your family, helping out,” Dean says, stepping forward with his hand out to shake.
Eric just looks at the outstretched hand and pretty much growls.
An unsteady Ann arrives, interrupting the non-reciprocation standoff her husband is waging. She’s holding her body very stiffly around her broken ribs like she’s trying to protect herself. “Dean, can you please go move your car. I’ll explain to Eric. Make sure to ask Babesne to give you what I found for her,” Ann says, giving Dean a pleading look. She turns to focus on her husband. “Please, honey. Quiet down now, or you’ll wake the girls. It’s very early,” she pleads.
“Okay Ann, if you’re sure you’ll be alright,” Dean says, wary at leaving her alone with this raging man who is looking like he wants to take somebody apart piece by piece. She’d been so medicated that she hadn’t even been awakened last night during all the fracas.
Eric tosses him the car keys as he passes. “There better not be any scratches.”
Dean’s lip curls in disgust at this awful man. “No problem-o sir.” As he leaves he hears a snatch of their conversation where Ann tells him about Sergio being in the hospital and their car crash. The man better be a little more understanding when he gets back or there are going to be at least some words exchanged Dean mutters to himself.
When Dean re-enters the penthouse, the first thing he hears is crying, it sounds like all hell is breaking loose, but it’s just the girls. But he sees that they have good reason to be screaming, their father is dragging their mother through the now-unlocked mystery door that leads to the roof. Sam and Babesne are nowhere in sight, and the girls are hovering at the doorway of the guest room they slept in the last two nights with Sam and Dean.
“Stay there girls!” Dean shouts as he runs towards the roof door. Ann doesn’t look like she’s even conscious, she’s not struggling at all as her husband drags her by the arms up the short staircase.
Dean can see the early morning sky just starting to go blue after the dawn as he dashes forward to try and stop Eric. He first tries calling out, “Hey Eric! Mr. Merrell stop, she’s hurt!”
The man looks down the stairs at him, and Dean’s blood runs cold, the eyes are not the pale blue he’d noticed a few minutes ago when they met. No, Eric’s eyes are the same eerie green that Dean saw a glimpse of last night as he was getting hauled out the window. The man that is now a creature growls at him, baring long fangs, its claws gripping into Ann’s shoulders. Dean leaps up a few steps and is barely able to reach Ann’s feet, grabbing onto them before it can haul her off the top of the stairs. The creature is too strong, so her limp body stretches taut between them. Dean lets go of her ankles by degrees and lowers her feet down. The creature snarls at him again, eyes flashing even greener, its terrible fangs grinning in triumph and pulls her off the staircase, quickly disappearing up onto the roof.
Dean dashes up the rest of the stairs after them and pulls his gun. He shoots at the creature, which is still dragging Ann by the shoulders. All the bullets hit, but do nothing except make the thing angry. It drops Ann on a patio bench and roars at him, claws extending in threat. Dean charges forward, leaping at its midsection for a tackle, hoping to be able to at least take the thing down. The creature and Dean fall to the tiled floor, tangled up in a parody of an embrace. The thing slashes at him with claws and fangs, Dean punches it in the head as many times as he can manage. But it suddenly raises up and head-butts him hard. Dean lies there, stunned, trying to get up and keep fighting like he knows he needs to. But it’s standing above him swinging a piece of cement bench and then all he sees is black, and stars and then nothing.
Sam comes to, groggy with the spell or whatever it was that the girl’s father had used on him. He looks around the room, he’s still on the bed, Babesne next to him, still zonked. The girls though, they’re at the edge of the doorway, because Babesne had told them whatever they did not to go past the sigil on the door. “Sam! You waked up! He took mommy, he took her, Sam!” Sarie yells.
Before he realizes it, he’s out of the bed, shaking his head to try and clear it a little, focusing on the distress of the two little girls in front of him. Sarie is vibrating with fear and anger. “I’m sorry, Sarie, he did something to us. Okay, where did he go?”
“The roof, up to the roof. And Dean came, and I heard a snarl and a thud, then nothing. Macky says Dean is asleep too, just like Mommy,” Sarie says, holding Macky close to her and petting her hair to soothe her.
Babesne wakes up and sits up slowly. She hands Sam a paper with a sigil and some words. “Use this on it, has to be on the forehead, while you say the words,” she says in a weak voice, falling back onto the bed.
“Where did you find this?” Sam asks as he checks his gun.
“Ann found it. It was in the office safe. That’s why he had it locked up, it’s got to be the only thing that will work on him. It’s very close to one I’ve tried before,” Babesne answers.
“You guys stay here with Babesne, okay?” Sam says to a wide-eyed Sarie. He gently touches Macky’s head. “It’ll be okay, I’ve got this.”
As Sam walks down the long hallway, he silently reads the words written below the sigil that he needs to chant, “Hocatos, Imorad, Surater, Markila”. He murmurs them to himself repeatedly as he stalks towards the open door. The fresh smell of pre-dawn morning in the city is flooding down the stairs. Sam slowly ascends, checking for any signs of struggle. As he nears the top, he hears nothing but distant city noises, but sees what has to be the edge of Dean’s bare foot almost dangling into the opening of the staircase. Adjusting his eyes to the early morning light Sam peers over the edge and sees Eric writing something in chalk on the slate tile floor. He’s pushed all the furniture out of the way to make a big space, and Ann is lying on one of the patio benches, her arm hanging down limply. So she’s out of it too.
He wraps a hand around Dean’s bare ankle, feeling for a pulse. It’s there, steady but weak. Sam creeps past his brother’s inert body, slowly coming closer to Eric. He takes time to calculate how he can best possibly have a chance to hold the sigil to this thing’s forehead while the words are said. It seems like taking him by surprise is the only plan available. Eric doesn’t seem to be paying attention to anything else, as he keeps drawing what looks like a somewhat similar sigil to the one on the paper Sam holds, just greatly enlarged. Large enough to contain a body, which is what he does when he throws down the chalk, hoists Ann up like a sack of potatoes and dumps her in the middle of the inscribed circle.
Hiding behind the outdoor wet-bar, Sam can hear Eric chanting some words and watches as claws appear to replace his fingers. Before Eric can have time to use them on Ann, Sam takes his chance and steps forward, quickly slapping the paper onto Eric’s forehead and holding it as still as he can with the other arm around his neck in a sleeper hold. Now is the time to be glad for his large hands and the strength of his arms. He’s barely able to hold him as he spits the words out as quickly as possible, “Hocatos, Imorad, Surater, Markila.”
The creature that was formerly Eric Merrell goes rigid as stone, his eyes widen to an impossible size and the claws at the ends of his fingers seem to grow even longer. They are the only thing he can seem to move and he slashes them into Sam’s sides. Sam gasps and says the words again more clearly, “Hocatos, Imorad, Surater, Markila.”
It howls, an inhuman and massive sound that seems to change the air pressure around them. It lets up suddenly, Sam’s ears pop and he can’t hear anything for a moment. But the creature crumbles to pieces in his arms, the claws dug into his side go to powder. The debris falls all over Ann who is starting to stir. Sam brushes himself off and goes to her side to help her sit up. She looks around in surprise, and her eyes fall on the pieces of her husband. “Is he really gone?” she asks in a subdued voice.
“Yeah. The banishing sigil Babesne gave me worked after all,” Sam says, rubbing at her back in comfort.
“I knew that thing in the safe had to be something important. I’m glad I found it and gave it to her,” Ann says, her arms come around him seeking human contact after her massive loss and trauma, Sam gives in and just hugs her for a long moment. She seems to let go and sink into him, and he pulls away to check that she hasn’t passed out. But then he catches a glimpse of green flashing in her eyes. Green that should not ever be in her pale blue eyes. Her arms tighten around him like steel bands, and he can’t move.
“Let him go of him, bitch!” Dean yells from the top of the staircase across the rooftop.
Sam turns his head away as she snarls in his face, the bullets Dean must be shooting whizz by and miss her completely. “Dean the sigil, get the paper, over there, put it on her forehead,” Sam manages to say as she cuts off his air with one arm around his neck. The world starts swimming and Sam is saying the words he memorized, just in case Dean has found the paper and gotten it onto Ann’s forehead. He can’t see, or hear, but maybe just maybe Dean’s managed it. The pressure on his windpipe eases up and he’s saying the words over and over, “Hocatos, Imorad, Surater, Markila.” One last time through is all it takes. The creature throws Sam away from it with terrible force, he lands hard up against the rooftop railing. The last thing he hears is a horrible crack when his shoulder impacts the concrete wall.
An even worse sound to Dean’s ears is Sam’s head hitting the tiled floor. Ann’s arms go limp and she slumps down, neck bent like she’s fallen asleep. Ann’s head arches back suddenly, her whole body going taut as a huge column of greenish-black smoke pours out of her mouth. This time when she comes back to herself, she’s only Ann. And she’s entirely grateful.
“What was that?” Ann asks, completely confused.
“Whatever it was, it possessed you, but we kicked it out,” Dean answers.
Dean lets go of her to go check on Sam. There’s a weak, but steady pulse, but the side of Sam’s head is already swelling, and his previously injured shoulder is at a completely wrong angle. Ann unsteadily gets to her feet. “I’ll go call 9-1-1, stay with him,” she says, leaving them alone up on the roof.
“Sam, you are not going anywhere, you hear me? Dammit, Sammy, you have to stay with me, you promised,” Dean says, knowing that he’s begging pointlessly, but
Sam might hear him, who knows? He holds onto him tightly, praying that the ambulance gets to them in time.
~~*~~
“So let me get this straight, Eric wasn’t happy with letting the demon ride him, he was trying to get the demon to jump over, and take you over permanently? To what? Get control of the Black Pullet or to hurt the girls?” Dean asks, rubbing the side of his head with the hand that’s not holding Sam’s.
“It’s hard to admit, but he sold out our family for more power of his own, since all the wealth is in my name, not his. All the fortune is passed down the matrilineal line. If you hadn’t banished it from me, my family would have been ruined,” Ann says, handing him a cup of coffee from the hospital cafeteria.
“I’m just sorry he did that to all of you. Just for money or power or whatever,” Dean says, shaking his head.
“Thanks. I don’t know how we can ever thank you guys, for what you did for us,” Ann says, looking at him across Sam’s comatose form, so limp and uninhabited under the woven thermal blanket.
“I’m just glad you’re all okay, really, that’s what makes it worth it for us. That you guys will all have a life after this,” Dean says, trying to sound hopeful, and to keep the wavery emotion out of his voice when he thinks of the possibility of what he and Sam might or might not have to look forward to, if the jerk could ever bother to wake up that is.
Ann nods at him, and looks at Sam’s quiet face, still so bruised and swollen after a week. She looks at Dean and his not as bruised face, sad and still hopeful through it all. “I hope someday I can find someone to try having a life with again. And that it’s even halfway to what you guys have together.”
“You’ll find someone, Ann, don’t worry,” Dean says, glad to have something else to think about instead of worrying about Sam.
“It’s always been hard finding someone, because I don’t know how they’ll feel about my life and how strange it can be. Eric seemed so interested in it all, I guess I know why now. Maybe I need to have you guys check my dates out, if I ever have any,” Ann jokes.
Dean chuckles a little at the idea of Sam and him vetting her suitors at some point. “We can do that if you want. No matter what, you’ll always have us anyway. Whenever you need us, just call. Sam and me, we both want to make sure your girls grow up safe. They’re something special.”
“I think you guys should stay here in the city with us while Sam recuperates fully. In fact I insist. Call it selfish, but I want you two around. As the rescued party, I’m pretty sure I get to make that call. And I’m paying all the hospital and rehab bills, so don’t bother arguing about it.”
Dean grins in acceptance and shakes his head at her generosity. It’s wonderful to hear someone else be as blindly positive about Sam’s chances as he is, all the doctor’s talk of percentages of a successful recovery has shaken him to the core. Sam has to recover, that’s all there is to it.
~~*~~
“We’re gonna be just like you guys when we grow up. We’re gonna fight bad guys together and be girlfriends, and it’s gonna be awesome,” Sarie says, holding onto Dean’s hand as they walk through the park on the way for her daily visit to see Sam in the hospital.
Dean sighs and gathers her up into his arms, still walking on the wooded pathway. He needs to be sure that these words are really heard and understood. “Sarie, me and Sam, you know that’s not what people usually do right? Usually you find someone to love that isn’t your brother or your sister.”
“But me and Macky aren’t like usual,” Sarie says, putting her arms around his neck.
“True. But you’re so young, I just think you ought to look outside your family for love too. It doesn’t mean you don’t love Macky enough. She just might not be the right person for you to spend your life with.”
“Why wouldn’t I want to?” Sarie asks.
“I’m not saying no don’t do it ever. I’m just saying, don’t get stuck thinking that’s your only option. That’s all. There are a lot of people out there in the whole big world that you haven’t even met yet.”
“But none of them are Macky,” Sarie says, sounding sad that so many people have to go through life in such an awful condition.
“True. But there’s only ever one of a person anyway. There’s only one you, one of your mom, right? What I’m saying is, that you don’t know what kind of person you’ll want to be with when you grow up all the way, a lot of stuff changes over the years,” Dean says.
“But it didn’t for you and Sam,” Sarie insists stubbornly.
Dean switches her over to his other hip, resettling her so she can see his face. “It did and it didn’t, it’s complicated honey. Listen, I’m glad that you and Macky love each other so much. That’s what you’re supposed to do, and that’s forever. But you guys are going to have a very different kind of life than Sam and I did, with a lot of friends around you for years and years that you’ll both get to know, together and separately. I’m just saying, you and Macky have a lot of time to figure this stuff out, okay?”
“Okay, but I’m still always gonna love her,” Sarie says.
“Good, that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do. No matter what.”
Sarie doesn’t say anything, just rests her head on Dean’s shoulder, her body relaxing a little. Dean hopes that what he’s said made sense to her, and he wonders if he said the right thing, or if he should tell Ann just in case. What would Sam do here? He thinks for the thousandth time over the last month since Sam’s been in a coma.
~~*~~
A few weeks later, Dean sits at Sam’s bedside in the hospital. At least it isn’t the ICU anymore, and no matter how nice it is, it’s still a hospital, one that he’s gotten way too familiar with over the last month. All the waiting and worrying and hoping, even praying when he got desperate enough for Sam to wake up. He closes his eyes and lays his head down on the bed in the space next to Sam’s hip, lips moving in a continuous silent plea, come back to me Sammy you promised me you wouldn’t leave me please wake up. He startles at the light touch on the back of his neck and sits up, eyes wide in surprise.
“You came back to me,” Dean says, eyes welling up with unshed tears. “Took you long enough.”
“I always do, eventually,” Sam croaks, “Water please.”
Dean holds a cup of room-temperature water with a bendy straw that Sam sips slowly and runs the water around the inside of his mouth. “How long was I out?”
“Three weeks this time, two weeks before,” Dean answers, eyes never leaving the miracle of Sam’s beautiful eyes finally being open and alive again like they’re supposed to be.
“Before? I don’t remember a before,” Sam says, looking confused and out-of-sorts that he doesn’t know what Dean means.
“Yeah, they told me you probably wouldn’t. It’s been five weeks Sammy,” Dean says, voice cracking on five weeks, because damn it’s been so long without him to talk to.
“Nice beard by the way,” Sam says, reaching out a weak hand to stroke the side of Dean’s face closest to him.
“Sarie calls it my Sam beard,” Dean says, the tears of relief starting to flow down his cheeks to wet his gingery beard.
“I’m sorry I was gone for so long, Dean,” Sam says, touching the tracks the tears are leaving down Dean’s face.
“Doesn’t matter, all that matters is you’re back now,” Dean replies, his own fingers twining with Sam’s on his face, feeling the heat and pulse of Sam’s aliveness in them.
“Is this Sinai? How are we affording this?” Sam asks, eyes darting around the fancy hospital room. A single private room no less, with comfortable upholstered furniture for guests, beautiful window treatments, and many vases of flower arrangements arranged on the window sill.
“Yeah it is. Ann’s paying for all of it, she says nothing but the best for you,” Dean answers. “You had a major concussion and swelling that they had to operate on. Sorry about the hair. They were gonna cut just that side of your head, but I told them to do the whole shebang so you can start out even. And your shoulder is permanently messed up, pins and a plate are holding it together.”
“Am I going to be able to move it?” Sam asks after a long pause where he might be thinking or just spacing out.
“Yeah Sammy, you gotta do rehab, but it’ll be usable. Not one-hundred percent, probably ever, but usable.”
“Girls okay after everything?” Sam asks.
“Yep, they bounced back pretty quickly. As you can see Sarie has been busy,” Dean says, pointing at the walls which are covered in her drawings. Sigils and black hens and golden eggs intertwined with the usual five year old doodles. And everywhere is her writing, Get Better Sam, Get Well Soon Sam, Sam Play Frisbee With Me Again, on and on.
“She can write all that? At her age?” Sam asks, sounding completely surprised and impressed.
“Yeah, I took care of her for a while. Babesne said I needed something to take my mind off of you since my heart was a lost cause,” Dean admits. “She got pretty good with all the practice I made her do.”
“You make such a good dad, or uncle, or whatever you are to her by now,” Sam says with a fond smile.
“She’s calling us Uncles, that’s what she’s decided. And she says it’s forever, and we can’t get out of it.”
Sam laughs at that, and then a wave of pain passes through him at the sudden movement. “Still hurts, but god that’s funny. So we’re stuck with her huh?”
“Looks like,” Dean answers with a grin.
“I don’t have a problem with that,” Sam says with a weak smile.
~~*~~
After two months of rehab, and then the holidays spent with the Merrell girls in a whirl of lights and presents and food, they are finally leaving New York City. The car doors slam in unison, and suddenly everything is better in his world. It’s been way too long since he’s been here with Dean. Baby starts up just like she always does, roaring to life, coughing a bit, then evening out into the usual purring growl.
“This’ll be the hard part, watch the pillar on the right for me,” Dean asks as he starts trying to back out of the tiny parking space.
“Maybe you can break your record of back and forth parking, I think it was thirty tries in Chicago,” Sam observes. “You’re close on this side.”
“I’m close over here too.” Dean skillfully backs up and then inches forward and back, cutting the wheel and advancing to make the corner out of the garage. “You’d think this garage would be made for bigger cars since the building’s so old.”
“You’ve almost got it,” Sam encourages, adjusting the knit beanie that he always wears since his now very short hair leaves him so cold. He feels impatient for it to grow longer again. At least it’s not a complete buzz cut like he had straight out of the hospital.
Finally Dean pulls them out straight, and they drive out of the underground garage, blinking blindly into the bright January early morning sun. “Where to?”
“Go West, young man! That’s all I’ve got at the moment,” Sam says with a laugh, studiously refusing to pull out a map and start navigating this early. And he can’t anyway with his arm in a shoulder isolation sling, and his brain still recovering from the concussion and surgery.
“Back on the road again,” Dean starts singing, very badly, at the top of his voice.
Sam goggles at him in surprise. “Really Dean?”
“It’s the only song that fits right now, and you know it, you gotta give it up for Willie,” Dean says, continuing the song, until Sam gives in and joins him singing the chorus. They grin at each other and laugh, it’s way too early for singing.
“How many of those eggs did they give us again?” Dean asks, navigating through the crowded mess of morning Manhattan traffic.
“One for each year of the girl’s lives we saved, up until they needed Protecting. So thirteen from Sarie and eighteen from Macky, that’s thirty-three total,” Sam answers, glancing in the back seat at the large wooden boxes that contain all their new treasure.
“How much gold is that all together?” Dean asks, switching lanes to get around a double-parked delivery truck and swerving out of the way of a taxi coming the other way.
Sam tries not to react to Dean’s city driving and concentrates on the math problem Dean is providing him. “Well, I didn’t weigh them with a digital scale or anything, but I’d guess they’re about a pound each, so that’s thirty-three pounds or so.”
“What’s that worth, wouldja say?” Dean asks, drumming his fingers on the wheel in time to the Black Sabbath on the radio.
“Depends on how pure it is. But probably between six or eight-hundred thousand,” Sam answers after doing the figuring in his head. He smiles when he realizes why
Dean’s asking all these questions right now while they’re in traffic. Dean’s distracting him from freaking out at the traffic.
Dean whistles in admiration and surprise. “That’s a whole lot of money, whaddya you wanna do with it Sammy?”
“Spend it on a place to retire, I’ve got to admit, I’m done with hunting, Dean,” Sam says, scared at being so honest, when he knows Dean probably won’t want to join him in retirement, even if he says he does.
“Yeah I know. Not telling me anything I didn’t already figure out. And no apologizing. We gave it everything we had, many times over, so we’re out,” Dean says like it’s the end of the argument, no other options, but there’s a relief behind the words that Sam can hear.
“You don’t have to be out, I mean you can keep hunting if you want to,” Sam protests, still trying to picture his brother not being a hunter, and there’s nothing that he can put in there that will ever make sense.
“I know you don’t really mean that. And I don’t want to hunt solo anyways, only wanna keep doin’ it with you,” Dean says.
“Well you can. Keep doin’ it with me,” Sam says with a straight face that he knows wouldn’t fool anyone, especially Dean.
“That’s a whole ‘nother subject Sam,” Dean drawls, taking him up on the innuendo.
“Yeah I know, we’re going to have a lot of time to fill without all the driving around killing monsters,” Sam says. Two yellow cabs have a near collision in the intersection they’re passing through and erupt into a battle of honking horns. Sam winces at the noise. “I’m not really going to miss being in the city after all this.”
“Yeah me neither. And you missed most of it while you were out cold. So no big city living’ for us after all huh?” Dean asks.
“Not so much, but a suburb of one would be alright I guess. I wouldn’t mind having some room between us and the neighbors. But still be close enough to go to the city for cultural stuff which yes, before you ask, does include both baseball games and rock concerts.”
Dean laughs because he knows they’re going to end up going to just as many museums or plays as baseball games and concerts if Sam has anything to do with the planning. “With your pins and plates, you want to shoot for somewhere without a real winter?”
“That’d probably be better for me, if you can deal with missing out on snow,” Sam says with a slight tease in his voice, thinking of all those snowball fights and snow angels and yellow snow writing contests that Dean always gleefully insists they do whenever there’s more than an inch of snow on the ground.
“Dude! I am not the one who likes snow, you are,” Dean insists.
“Why do you always have so much fun in it then?” Sam asks, with a very obvious tease in his voice.
“Usually because you are,” Dean says with a shrug like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
Sam looks at his brother for a long moment, taking in what those words mean over the whole lifetime of history they share. He inhales a deep breath and holds Dean’s hand loosely in his. “Sometimes, because of stuff like that, I really wonder if we’re just one person in two bodies.”
“Pretty sure that’s the dictionary definition of soul mates, Sammy,” Dean answers, squeezing their hands together.
Sam doesn’t reply to that, because what can he really add? They are soul mates, through and through. Now that there’s no more denial of it coming from either of them, suddenly their completely changing life is so much clearer and even more promising, all at once.
~FIN~
Masterpost
*~*~*
“Ann, goddammit! Ann where are you! Someone’s parked in my space downstairs. This giant old boat of a car. Call security for me. No, call Sergio!” a very tall and very incensed man who has to be Eric Merrell yells down the dark, early-morning quiet hallway.
Dean was only lightly sleeping because of the itching feeling of his injuries healing up underneath the salve, so he’s the first one that gets up. He pops his head out of the guest room doorway, “Sorry Mr. Merrell, I’ll go move my car, we thought you were coming back this afternoon.”
“Who the hell are you? What the fuck are you doing in my house?” The man yells, gesturing with his leather-gloved hands in an increasingly threatening manner. His pale blue eyes are wide in anger but red-rimmed as if he’s been around a lot of smoke, his white-blond hair looks a bit wild and wind-blown.
“Name’s Dean. Dean Winchester, nice to meet ya. We’ve been staying here with your family, helping out,” Dean says, stepping forward with his hand out to shake.
Eric just looks at the outstretched hand and pretty much growls.
An unsteady Ann arrives, interrupting the non-reciprocation standoff her husband is waging. She’s holding her body very stiffly around her broken ribs like she’s trying to protect herself. “Dean, can you please go move your car. I’ll explain to Eric. Make sure to ask Babesne to give you what I found for her,” Ann says, giving Dean a pleading look. She turns to focus on her husband. “Please, honey. Quiet down now, or you’ll wake the girls. It’s very early,” she pleads.
“Okay Ann, if you’re sure you’ll be alright,” Dean says, wary at leaving her alone with this raging man who is looking like he wants to take somebody apart piece by piece. She’d been so medicated that she hadn’t even been awakened last night during all the fracas.
Eric tosses him the car keys as he passes. “There better not be any scratches.”
Dean’s lip curls in disgust at this awful man. “No problem-o sir.” As he leaves he hears a snatch of their conversation where Ann tells him about Sergio being in the hospital and their car crash. The man better be a little more understanding when he gets back or there are going to be at least some words exchanged Dean mutters to himself.
When Dean re-enters the penthouse, the first thing he hears is crying, it sounds like all hell is breaking loose, but it’s just the girls. But he sees that they have good reason to be screaming, their father is dragging their mother through the now-unlocked mystery door that leads to the roof. Sam and Babesne are nowhere in sight, and the girls are hovering at the doorway of the guest room they slept in the last two nights with Sam and Dean.
“Stay there girls!” Dean shouts as he runs towards the roof door. Ann doesn’t look like she’s even conscious, she’s not struggling at all as her husband drags her by the arms up the short staircase.
Dean can see the early morning sky just starting to go blue after the dawn as he dashes forward to try and stop Eric. He first tries calling out, “Hey Eric! Mr. Merrell stop, she’s hurt!”
The man looks down the stairs at him, and Dean’s blood runs cold, the eyes are not the pale blue he’d noticed a few minutes ago when they met. No, Eric’s eyes are the same eerie green that Dean saw a glimpse of last night as he was getting hauled out the window. The man that is now a creature growls at him, baring long fangs, its claws gripping into Ann’s shoulders. Dean leaps up a few steps and is barely able to reach Ann’s feet, grabbing onto them before it can haul her off the top of the stairs. The creature is too strong, so her limp body stretches taut between them. Dean lets go of her ankles by degrees and lowers her feet down. The creature snarls at him again, eyes flashing even greener, its terrible fangs grinning in triumph and pulls her off the staircase, quickly disappearing up onto the roof.
Dean dashes up the rest of the stairs after them and pulls his gun. He shoots at the creature, which is still dragging Ann by the shoulders. All the bullets hit, but do nothing except make the thing angry. It drops Ann on a patio bench and roars at him, claws extending in threat. Dean charges forward, leaping at its midsection for a tackle, hoping to be able to at least take the thing down. The creature and Dean fall to the tiled floor, tangled up in a parody of an embrace. The thing slashes at him with claws and fangs, Dean punches it in the head as many times as he can manage. But it suddenly raises up and head-butts him hard. Dean lies there, stunned, trying to get up and keep fighting like he knows he needs to. But it’s standing above him swinging a piece of cement bench and then all he sees is black, and stars and then nothing.
Sam comes to, groggy with the spell or whatever it was that the girl’s father had used on him. He looks around the room, he’s still on the bed, Babesne next to him, still zonked. The girls though, they’re at the edge of the doorway, because Babesne had told them whatever they did not to go past the sigil on the door. “Sam! You waked up! He took mommy, he took her, Sam!” Sarie yells.
Before he realizes it, he’s out of the bed, shaking his head to try and clear it a little, focusing on the distress of the two little girls in front of him. Sarie is vibrating with fear and anger. “I’m sorry, Sarie, he did something to us. Okay, where did he go?”
“The roof, up to the roof. And Dean came, and I heard a snarl and a thud, then nothing. Macky says Dean is asleep too, just like Mommy,” Sarie says, holding Macky close to her and petting her hair to soothe her.
Babesne wakes up and sits up slowly. She hands Sam a paper with a sigil and some words. “Use this on it, has to be on the forehead, while you say the words,” she says in a weak voice, falling back onto the bed.
“Where did you find this?” Sam asks as he checks his gun.
“Ann found it. It was in the office safe. That’s why he had it locked up, it’s got to be the only thing that will work on him. It’s very close to one I’ve tried before,” Babesne answers.
“You guys stay here with Babesne, okay?” Sam says to a wide-eyed Sarie. He gently touches Macky’s head. “It’ll be okay, I’ve got this.”
As Sam walks down the long hallway, he silently reads the words written below the sigil that he needs to chant, “Hocatos, Imorad, Surater, Markila”. He murmurs them to himself repeatedly as he stalks towards the open door. The fresh smell of pre-dawn morning in the city is flooding down the stairs. Sam slowly ascends, checking for any signs of struggle. As he nears the top, he hears nothing but distant city noises, but sees what has to be the edge of Dean’s bare foot almost dangling into the opening of the staircase. Adjusting his eyes to the early morning light Sam peers over the edge and sees Eric writing something in chalk on the slate tile floor. He’s pushed all the furniture out of the way to make a big space, and Ann is lying on one of the patio benches, her arm hanging down limply. So she’s out of it too.
He wraps a hand around Dean’s bare ankle, feeling for a pulse. It’s there, steady but weak. Sam creeps past his brother’s inert body, slowly coming closer to Eric. He takes time to calculate how he can best possibly have a chance to hold the sigil to this thing’s forehead while the words are said. It seems like taking him by surprise is the only plan available. Eric doesn’t seem to be paying attention to anything else, as he keeps drawing what looks like a somewhat similar sigil to the one on the paper Sam holds, just greatly enlarged. Large enough to contain a body, which is what he does when he throws down the chalk, hoists Ann up like a sack of potatoes and dumps her in the middle of the inscribed circle.
Hiding behind the outdoor wet-bar, Sam can hear Eric chanting some words and watches as claws appear to replace his fingers. Before Eric can have time to use them on Ann, Sam takes his chance and steps forward, quickly slapping the paper onto Eric’s forehead and holding it as still as he can with the other arm around his neck in a sleeper hold. Now is the time to be glad for his large hands and the strength of his arms. He’s barely able to hold him as he spits the words out as quickly as possible, “Hocatos, Imorad, Surater, Markila.”
The creature that was formerly Eric Merrell goes rigid as stone, his eyes widen to an impossible size and the claws at the ends of his fingers seem to grow even longer. They are the only thing he can seem to move and he slashes them into Sam’s sides. Sam gasps and says the words again more clearly, “Hocatos, Imorad, Surater, Markila.”
It howls, an inhuman and massive sound that seems to change the air pressure around them. It lets up suddenly, Sam’s ears pop and he can’t hear anything for a moment. But the creature crumbles to pieces in his arms, the claws dug into his side go to powder. The debris falls all over Ann who is starting to stir. Sam brushes himself off and goes to her side to help her sit up. She looks around in surprise, and her eyes fall on the pieces of her husband. “Is he really gone?” she asks in a subdued voice.
“Yeah. The banishing sigil Babesne gave me worked after all,” Sam says, rubbing at her back in comfort.
“I knew that thing in the safe had to be something important. I’m glad I found it and gave it to her,” Ann says, her arms come around him seeking human contact after her massive loss and trauma, Sam gives in and just hugs her for a long moment. She seems to let go and sink into him, and he pulls away to check that she hasn’t passed out. But then he catches a glimpse of green flashing in her eyes. Green that should not ever be in her pale blue eyes. Her arms tighten around him like steel bands, and he can’t move.
“Let him go of him, bitch!” Dean yells from the top of the staircase across the rooftop.
Sam turns his head away as she snarls in his face, the bullets Dean must be shooting whizz by and miss her completely. “Dean the sigil, get the paper, over there, put it on her forehead,” Sam manages to say as she cuts off his air with one arm around his neck. The world starts swimming and Sam is saying the words he memorized, just in case Dean has found the paper and gotten it onto Ann’s forehead. He can’t see, or hear, but maybe just maybe Dean’s managed it. The pressure on his windpipe eases up and he’s saying the words over and over, “Hocatos, Imorad, Surater, Markila.” One last time through is all it takes. The creature throws Sam away from it with terrible force, he lands hard up against the rooftop railing. The last thing he hears is a horrible crack when his shoulder impacts the concrete wall.
An even worse sound to Dean’s ears is Sam’s head hitting the tiled floor. Ann’s arms go limp and she slumps down, neck bent like she’s fallen asleep. Ann’s head arches back suddenly, her whole body going taut as a huge column of greenish-black smoke pours out of her mouth. This time when she comes back to herself, she’s only Ann. And she’s entirely grateful.
“What was that?” Ann asks, completely confused.
“Whatever it was, it possessed you, but we kicked it out,” Dean answers.
Dean lets go of her to go check on Sam. There’s a weak, but steady pulse, but the side of Sam’s head is already swelling, and his previously injured shoulder is at a completely wrong angle. Ann unsteadily gets to her feet. “I’ll go call 9-1-1, stay with him,” she says, leaving them alone up on the roof.
“Sam, you are not going anywhere, you hear me? Dammit, Sammy, you have to stay with me, you promised,” Dean says, knowing that he’s begging pointlessly, but
Sam might hear him, who knows? He holds onto him tightly, praying that the ambulance gets to them in time.
~~*~~
“So let me get this straight, Eric wasn’t happy with letting the demon ride him, he was trying to get the demon to jump over, and take you over permanently? To what? Get control of the Black Pullet or to hurt the girls?” Dean asks, rubbing the side of his head with the hand that’s not holding Sam’s.
“It’s hard to admit, but he sold out our family for more power of his own, since all the wealth is in my name, not his. All the fortune is passed down the matrilineal line. If you hadn’t banished it from me, my family would have been ruined,” Ann says, handing him a cup of coffee from the hospital cafeteria.
“I’m just sorry he did that to all of you. Just for money or power or whatever,” Dean says, shaking his head.
“Thanks. I don’t know how we can ever thank you guys, for what you did for us,” Ann says, looking at him across Sam’s comatose form, so limp and uninhabited under the woven thermal blanket.
“I’m just glad you’re all okay, really, that’s what makes it worth it for us. That you guys will all have a life after this,” Dean says, trying to sound hopeful, and to keep the wavery emotion out of his voice when he thinks of the possibility of what he and Sam might or might not have to look forward to, if the jerk could ever bother to wake up that is.
Ann nods at him, and looks at Sam’s quiet face, still so bruised and swollen after a week. She looks at Dean and his not as bruised face, sad and still hopeful through it all. “I hope someday I can find someone to try having a life with again. And that it’s even halfway to what you guys have together.”
“You’ll find someone, Ann, don’t worry,” Dean says, glad to have something else to think about instead of worrying about Sam.
“It’s always been hard finding someone, because I don’t know how they’ll feel about my life and how strange it can be. Eric seemed so interested in it all, I guess I know why now. Maybe I need to have you guys check my dates out, if I ever have any,” Ann jokes.
Dean chuckles a little at the idea of Sam and him vetting her suitors at some point. “We can do that if you want. No matter what, you’ll always have us anyway. Whenever you need us, just call. Sam and me, we both want to make sure your girls grow up safe. They’re something special.”
“I think you guys should stay here in the city with us while Sam recuperates fully. In fact I insist. Call it selfish, but I want you two around. As the rescued party, I’m pretty sure I get to make that call. And I’m paying all the hospital and rehab bills, so don’t bother arguing about it.”
Dean grins in acceptance and shakes his head at her generosity. It’s wonderful to hear someone else be as blindly positive about Sam’s chances as he is, all the doctor’s talk of percentages of a successful recovery has shaken him to the core. Sam has to recover, that’s all there is to it.
~~*~~
“We’re gonna be just like you guys when we grow up. We’re gonna fight bad guys together and be girlfriends, and it’s gonna be awesome,” Sarie says, holding onto Dean’s hand as they walk through the park on the way for her daily visit to see Sam in the hospital.
Dean sighs and gathers her up into his arms, still walking on the wooded pathway. He needs to be sure that these words are really heard and understood. “Sarie, me and Sam, you know that’s not what people usually do right? Usually you find someone to love that isn’t your brother or your sister.”
“But me and Macky aren’t like usual,” Sarie says, putting her arms around his neck.
“True. But you’re so young, I just think you ought to look outside your family for love too. It doesn’t mean you don’t love Macky enough. She just might not be the right person for you to spend your life with.”
“Why wouldn’t I want to?” Sarie asks.
“I’m not saying no don’t do it ever. I’m just saying, don’t get stuck thinking that’s your only option. That’s all. There are a lot of people out there in the whole big world that you haven’t even met yet.”
“But none of them are Macky,” Sarie says, sounding sad that so many people have to go through life in such an awful condition.
“True. But there’s only ever one of a person anyway. There’s only one you, one of your mom, right? What I’m saying is, that you don’t know what kind of person you’ll want to be with when you grow up all the way, a lot of stuff changes over the years,” Dean says.
“But it didn’t for you and Sam,” Sarie insists stubbornly.
Dean switches her over to his other hip, resettling her so she can see his face. “It did and it didn’t, it’s complicated honey. Listen, I’m glad that you and Macky love each other so much. That’s what you’re supposed to do, and that’s forever. But you guys are going to have a very different kind of life than Sam and I did, with a lot of friends around you for years and years that you’ll both get to know, together and separately. I’m just saying, you and Macky have a lot of time to figure this stuff out, okay?”
“Okay, but I’m still always gonna love her,” Sarie says.
“Good, that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do. No matter what.”
Sarie doesn’t say anything, just rests her head on Dean’s shoulder, her body relaxing a little. Dean hopes that what he’s said made sense to her, and he wonders if he said the right thing, or if he should tell Ann just in case. What would Sam do here? He thinks for the thousandth time over the last month since Sam’s been in a coma.
~~*~~
A few weeks later, Dean sits at Sam’s bedside in the hospital. At least it isn’t the ICU anymore, and no matter how nice it is, it’s still a hospital, one that he’s gotten way too familiar with over the last month. All the waiting and worrying and hoping, even praying when he got desperate enough for Sam to wake up. He closes his eyes and lays his head down on the bed in the space next to Sam’s hip, lips moving in a continuous silent plea, come back to me Sammy you promised me you wouldn’t leave me please wake up. He startles at the light touch on the back of his neck and sits up, eyes wide in surprise.
“You came back to me,” Dean says, eyes welling up with unshed tears. “Took you long enough.”
“I always do, eventually,” Sam croaks, “Water please.”
Dean holds a cup of room-temperature water with a bendy straw that Sam sips slowly and runs the water around the inside of his mouth. “How long was I out?”
“Three weeks this time, two weeks before,” Dean answers, eyes never leaving the miracle of Sam’s beautiful eyes finally being open and alive again like they’re supposed to be.
“Before? I don’t remember a before,” Sam says, looking confused and out-of-sorts that he doesn’t know what Dean means.
“Yeah, they told me you probably wouldn’t. It’s been five weeks Sammy,” Dean says, voice cracking on five weeks, because damn it’s been so long without him to talk to.
“Nice beard by the way,” Sam says, reaching out a weak hand to stroke the side of Dean’s face closest to him.
“Sarie calls it my Sam beard,” Dean says, the tears of relief starting to flow down his cheeks to wet his gingery beard.
“I’m sorry I was gone for so long, Dean,” Sam says, touching the tracks the tears are leaving down Dean’s face.
“Doesn’t matter, all that matters is you’re back now,” Dean replies, his own fingers twining with Sam’s on his face, feeling the heat and pulse of Sam’s aliveness in them.
“Is this Sinai? How are we affording this?” Sam asks, eyes darting around the fancy hospital room. A single private room no less, with comfortable upholstered furniture for guests, beautiful window treatments, and many vases of flower arrangements arranged on the window sill.
“Yeah it is. Ann’s paying for all of it, she says nothing but the best for you,” Dean answers. “You had a major concussion and swelling that they had to operate on. Sorry about the hair. They were gonna cut just that side of your head, but I told them to do the whole shebang so you can start out even. And your shoulder is permanently messed up, pins and a plate are holding it together.”
“Am I going to be able to move it?” Sam asks after a long pause where he might be thinking or just spacing out.
“Yeah Sammy, you gotta do rehab, but it’ll be usable. Not one-hundred percent, probably ever, but usable.”
“Girls okay after everything?” Sam asks.
“Yep, they bounced back pretty quickly. As you can see Sarie has been busy,” Dean says, pointing at the walls which are covered in her drawings. Sigils and black hens and golden eggs intertwined with the usual five year old doodles. And everywhere is her writing, Get Better Sam, Get Well Soon Sam, Sam Play Frisbee With Me Again, on and on.
“She can write all that? At her age?” Sam asks, sounding completely surprised and impressed.
“Yeah, I took care of her for a while. Babesne said I needed something to take my mind off of you since my heart was a lost cause,” Dean admits. “She got pretty good with all the practice I made her do.”
“You make such a good dad, or uncle, or whatever you are to her by now,” Sam says with a fond smile.
“She’s calling us Uncles, that’s what she’s decided. And she says it’s forever, and we can’t get out of it.”
Sam laughs at that, and then a wave of pain passes through him at the sudden movement. “Still hurts, but god that’s funny. So we’re stuck with her huh?”
“Looks like,” Dean answers with a grin.
“I don’t have a problem with that,” Sam says with a weak smile.
~~*~~
After two months of rehab, and then the holidays spent with the Merrell girls in a whirl of lights and presents and food, they are finally leaving New York City. The car doors slam in unison, and suddenly everything is better in his world. It’s been way too long since he’s been here with Dean. Baby starts up just like she always does, roaring to life, coughing a bit, then evening out into the usual purring growl.
“This’ll be the hard part, watch the pillar on the right for me,” Dean asks as he starts trying to back out of the tiny parking space.
“Maybe you can break your record of back and forth parking, I think it was thirty tries in Chicago,” Sam observes. “You’re close on this side.”
“I’m close over here too.” Dean skillfully backs up and then inches forward and back, cutting the wheel and advancing to make the corner out of the garage. “You’d think this garage would be made for bigger cars since the building’s so old.”
“You’ve almost got it,” Sam encourages, adjusting the knit beanie that he always wears since his now very short hair leaves him so cold. He feels impatient for it to grow longer again. At least it’s not a complete buzz cut like he had straight out of the hospital.
Finally Dean pulls them out straight, and they drive out of the underground garage, blinking blindly into the bright January early morning sun. “Where to?”
“Go West, young man! That’s all I’ve got at the moment,” Sam says with a laugh, studiously refusing to pull out a map and start navigating this early. And he can’t anyway with his arm in a shoulder isolation sling, and his brain still recovering from the concussion and surgery.
“Back on the road again,” Dean starts singing, very badly, at the top of his voice.
Sam goggles at him in surprise. “Really Dean?”
“It’s the only song that fits right now, and you know it, you gotta give it up for Willie,” Dean says, continuing the song, until Sam gives in and joins him singing the chorus. They grin at each other and laugh, it’s way too early for singing.
“How many of those eggs did they give us again?” Dean asks, navigating through the crowded mess of morning Manhattan traffic.
“One for each year of the girl’s lives we saved, up until they needed Protecting. So thirteen from Sarie and eighteen from Macky, that’s thirty-three total,” Sam answers, glancing in the back seat at the large wooden boxes that contain all their new treasure.
“How much gold is that all together?” Dean asks, switching lanes to get around a double-parked delivery truck and swerving out of the way of a taxi coming the other way.
Sam tries not to react to Dean’s city driving and concentrates on the math problem Dean is providing him. “Well, I didn’t weigh them with a digital scale or anything, but I’d guess they’re about a pound each, so that’s thirty-three pounds or so.”
“What’s that worth, wouldja say?” Dean asks, drumming his fingers on the wheel in time to the Black Sabbath on the radio.
“Depends on how pure it is. But probably between six or eight-hundred thousand,” Sam answers after doing the figuring in his head. He smiles when he realizes why
Dean’s asking all these questions right now while they’re in traffic. Dean’s distracting him from freaking out at the traffic.
Dean whistles in admiration and surprise. “That’s a whole lot of money, whaddya you wanna do with it Sammy?”
“Spend it on a place to retire, I’ve got to admit, I’m done with hunting, Dean,” Sam says, scared at being so honest, when he knows Dean probably won’t want to join him in retirement, even if he says he does.
“Yeah I know. Not telling me anything I didn’t already figure out. And no apologizing. We gave it everything we had, many times over, so we’re out,” Dean says like it’s the end of the argument, no other options, but there’s a relief behind the words that Sam can hear.
“You don’t have to be out, I mean you can keep hunting if you want to,” Sam protests, still trying to picture his brother not being a hunter, and there’s nothing that he can put in there that will ever make sense.
“I know you don’t really mean that. And I don’t want to hunt solo anyways, only wanna keep doin’ it with you,” Dean says.
“Well you can. Keep doin’ it with me,” Sam says with a straight face that he knows wouldn’t fool anyone, especially Dean.
“That’s a whole ‘nother subject Sam,” Dean drawls, taking him up on the innuendo.
“Yeah I know, we’re going to have a lot of time to fill without all the driving around killing monsters,” Sam says. Two yellow cabs have a near collision in the intersection they’re passing through and erupt into a battle of honking horns. Sam winces at the noise. “I’m not really going to miss being in the city after all this.”
“Yeah me neither. And you missed most of it while you were out cold. So no big city living’ for us after all huh?” Dean asks.
“Not so much, but a suburb of one would be alright I guess. I wouldn’t mind having some room between us and the neighbors. But still be close enough to go to the city for cultural stuff which yes, before you ask, does include both baseball games and rock concerts.”
Dean laughs because he knows they’re going to end up going to just as many museums or plays as baseball games and concerts if Sam has anything to do with the planning. “With your pins and plates, you want to shoot for somewhere without a real winter?”
“That’d probably be better for me, if you can deal with missing out on snow,” Sam says with a slight tease in his voice, thinking of all those snowball fights and snow angels and yellow snow writing contests that Dean always gleefully insists they do whenever there’s more than an inch of snow on the ground.
“Dude! I am not the one who likes snow, you are,” Dean insists.
“Why do you always have so much fun in it then?” Sam asks, with a very obvious tease in his voice.
“Usually because you are,” Dean says with a shrug like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
Sam looks at his brother for a long moment, taking in what those words mean over the whole lifetime of history they share. He inhales a deep breath and holds Dean’s hand loosely in his. “Sometimes, because of stuff like that, I really wonder if we’re just one person in two bodies.”
“Pretty sure that’s the dictionary definition of soul mates, Sammy,” Dean answers, squeezing their hands together.
Sam doesn’t reply to that, because what can he really add? They are soul mates, through and through. Now that there’s no more denial of it coming from either of them, suddenly their completely changing life is so much clearer and even more promising, all at once.
~FIN~
Masterpost